ROMANOV FAMILY: ON THIS DATE IN THEIR OWN WORDS. NICHOLAS II. 14 MARCH, 1914
From the 1914 diary of Nicholas II:
Read more ROMANOV FAMILY: ON THIS DATE IN THEIR OWN WORDS. NICHOLAS II. 14 MARCH, 1914
ROMANOV FAMILY FRIEND: ANNA VYRUBOVA
ROMANOV FAMILY FRIEND: ANNA VYRUBOVA
Anna Alexandrovna Vyrubova, nee Taneyeva, a noblewoman at Russian imperial court, became a very close friend to Empress Alexandra and the entire Romanov family. It was said that Tsar Nicholas II and Tsarina Alexandra almost considered her their fifth daughter.
“Anya”, as the family members affectionately referred to her, even worked as a Sister of Mercy along the side of the Empress and her daughters, Grand Duchesses Olga and Tatiana, after the First World War began.
In early January of 1915, Anya boarded a train from Tsarskoe Selo to St Petersburg, and was involved in a very serious, near fatal accident. She survived, but was left crippled for the rest of her life. There is a myth that Grigori Rasputin, who was brought to see Anya shortly after the accident, was the one who saved her life.
Read more ROMANOV FAMILY FRIEND: ANNA VYRUBOVA
ROMANOV FAMILY AND RASPUTIN
ROMANOV FAMILY AND RASPUTIN
By Amanda Madru
Grigory Yefimovich Rasputin is a magnetic specter in the drama that is Russian history, for the peasant mystic from Pokrovskoe played a defining role in the last days of the Romanov Dynasty. In 1905, the fateful meeting took place. Rasputin requested—and was granted— an audience with the Romanov family at Peterhof, where he presented them with a hand-painted wooden icon of Saint Simeon, a venerated Siberian saint dear to Rasputin’s own heart. He soon became a trusted advisor and confidante to Emperor Nicholas II and Tsaritsa Alexandra Feodorovna; Alexandra in particular was convinced that the “staretz” was a gift to her from God Almighty, sent to ease her passage through life as the “Little Mother of Russia,” and especially to preserve the precious life of her only son, the Heir, Tsesarevich Alexei Nikolaevich. Read more ROMANOV FAMILY AND RASPUTIN
Yusupov Palace: Then and Now
Yusupov Palace: Then and Now
Just came across this “then and now” photograph of the Yusupov Palace on Moika before the revolution, which I created on my last trip to Russia. I painstakingly lined up the “now” photograph, as you can see… just because. Of course this is the palace where the infamous Rasputin murder took place.
